Studio: international art (41.1907)

Charles Sims

PORTRAITS BY CHARLES SIMS

exceptionally complete, and he lacks nothing which But it comes also from his instinctive originality,

lovers of serious achievement would regard as from his innate conviction that repetition means

vitally important. loss of opportunity ; the desire to roam in whatever

Perhaps his best mental characteristic is his direction he pleases is natural to him, and to

readiness to interest himself in very dissimilar abandon it would mean that he would have to

motives, and to choose subjects which differ from sacrifice something that he values greatly,
one another in a marked degree. His fancy does His habit of experiment, however, is not the

not run in a groove; it is bounded by no set con- mere careless drifting of the man who does not

ventions, and has, as yet, no defined limitations, know his own mind; and it is certainly not the

In a sense, indeed, Mr. Sims is decidedly an erratic result of any doubt concerning the vital essentials

artist, for he ranges about from one type of picture of art. It is really an evidence of his desire to

to another, and takes, apparently, a pleasure in test in as many ways as possible the thorough-

unexpectedly breaking new ground. This unwill- ness of his observation and the general applicability

ingness to settle down to any one line of practice— of his executive methods. When he has satisfied

an unwillingness, by the way, which is among himself on these points, it is possible that he may

modern artists as rare as it is commendable—is decide to work within particular boundaries, or to

doubtless due in some measure to the restlessness deal only with one kind of material; limitations of

of youth; he was born in 1873, so that he is even this sort may, indeed, be imposed upon him,

now too young to have lost his love of experiment, whether he wishes it or not, by the popular demand,

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